Confusion Increases their profits! (1 Viewer)

[Mr. D]

When is the American taxpayer going to catch on that there is allot of money to be made by keeping the American Health Care Industry confused and disorganized! I can drive my GM truck to any dealer in the world and they can access every bit of work done, or part required from the VIN#, but a doctor in my own town has no idea of my medical history unless I provide him with the information with piles of papers! We all pay more in well designed confusion!

It's not an accident that every attempt to "really" improve health care is fought and defeated by the health care industry through scare tactics! Follow the money, Honey! It will explain all! Yet we fall for the scare tactics every time!
:doh

 

[Axismaster]

The answer to the healthcare fiasco is summed up in three words- cheap holistic medicine.

 

[hipsterdufus]

When is the American taxpayer going to catch on that there is allot of money to be made by keeping the American Health Care Industry confused and disorganized! I can drive my GM truck to any dealer in the world and they can access every bit of work done, or part required from the VIN#, but a doctor in my own town has no idea of my medical history unless I provide him with the information with piles of papers! We all pay more in well designed confusion!

It's not an accident that every attempt to "really" improve health care is fought and defeated by the health care industry through scare tactics! Follow the money, Honey! It will explain all! Yet we fall for the scare tactics every time!
:doh

Maybe some of the lobbyist reforms that come out of the Abramoff scandal will help the problem. The Health Care industry is a HUGE lobby in Washington.

I think it's a shame that 1 in 7 Americans has no healthcare. The silly part of that is that insuring every American could actually save money when you think about it.

1. Uninsured people are less likely to go for regulary check-ups that could prevent major illnesses. Long term care for diabetes is an epidemic in America, but it could be reduced if people had better access to preventive measures.

2. Uninsured people visit the emergency room for services. This costs us all more.

3. GM moved a factory to Canada because of healthcare. More and more jobs are leaving because companies can't afford to provide it. The average Health Care premium was close to 10,000 a year in 2004.

 

[bandaidwoman]

When is the American taxpayer going to catch on that there is allot of money to be made by keeping the American Health Care Industry confused and disorganized! I can drive my GM truck to any dealer in the world and they can access every bit of work done, or part required from the VIN#, but a doctor in my own town has no idea of my medical history unless I provide him with the information with piles of papers! We all pay more in well designed confusion!

It's not an accident that every attempt to "really" improve health care is fought and defeated by the health care industry through scare tactics! Follow the money, Honey! It will explain all! Yet we fall for the scare tactics every time!
:doh

HIPPA didn't help either. Hopefully, as more of us go to electronic medical records (records can be accessed off the internet with the right passwords and codes) soon all of us can have our healthcare information easily accessed by providers around the world. Unfortunately, such systems are cost prohibitive. ours cost $150,000 but we felt in the long run (less paperwork, no need for transcription costs, less storage space for charts) that it would pay off and allow ease of care of patients. However, you get into the quandry that a good hacker can access your private information.

 

[alphieb]

I just have one question for those of you who do not support National Health Insurance, because your worried that taxes will increase. What is the difference in paying higher taxes as opposed to paying an outrageous premium?

 

[nkgupta80]

HIPPA didn't help either. Hopefully, as more of us go to electronic medical records (records can be accessed off the internet with the right passwords and codes) soon all of us can have our healthcare information easily accessed by providers around the world. Unfortunately, such systems are cost prohibitive. ours cost $150,000 but we felt in the long run (less paperwork, no need for transcription costs, less storage space for charts) that it would pay off and allow ease of care of patients. However, you get into the quandry that a good hacker can access your private information.

Theres also the idea of medical diagnostic systems, which have proven a consistent 98% accuracy in assessing the symptoms of the patient and producing a daignosis accordingly. This also relies on standardized electronic medical records. Of course this is staunchly opposed by general practicioners (they would be put outta business eventually by this technology). But imagine how much time, money, and lives could be saved by these systems.

 

[bandaidwoman]

Theres also the idea of medical diagnostic systems, which have proven a consistent 98% accuracy in assessing the symptoms of the patient and producing a daignosis accordingly. This also relies on standardized electronic medical records. Of course this is staunchly opposed by general practicioners (they would be put outta business eventually by this technology). But imagine how much time, money, and lives could be saved by these systems.

I'd like to see those studies. I bet a computer can't handle the usual patient with 6 different complaints ie(chronic fatigue (turned out to be due to periodic limb disorder) , ankle pain (ended up having sarcoidosis) and skin lesions (ended up being granuloma annulares.) (that's just one example)


had a patient with non specific abdominal pain, (pain in upper abdomen after eating.) normal CAT scan and ultrasound of the stomach and ovaries. Normal endoscopy and colonoscopy. CA 125 level normal.(blood work for ovarian cancer.) The upshot was that she stilll had dessimated ovarian cancer lining her peritoneum (abdominal ining which is why the cat scan missed it) and thus no diagnostic study could elucidate until we forced a surgeon to do a exploratory laprotomy. The road to the final diagnosis took a lot of detective work since her insurance was not going to pay for the exploratory laprotomy. I'd like to see a computer figure her out. (the woman was 22 years old poor thing.) She was told by a specialist that it was her nerves, and if you were to input statistical predictions based on age,race symptoms etc into some general diagnostic predictor disseminated ovarian cancer in 22 year old is non exisistant.


Nurse practioners and physicians assitants can handle a lot of the simple stuff as well as a physician for less cost and still provide the key assett of actually examining the patient. (A cough can be a sign on congestive heart failure as much as bronchitis and only a physical exam can elucidate the two.) which is why many offices now employ them to manage the simple stuff. (although my PA missed relapsing polychondritis as a cause of one person's recurrent bronchitis)

But you want the physician (not computer or nurse practioner) figuring out which of the "usual symptoms" are not due to the "usual diagnosis".

 

[Mr. D]

I just have one question for those of you who do not support National Health Insurance, because your worried that taxes will increase. What is the difference in paying higher taxes as opposed to paying an outrageous premium?

Good question! Everyone will be covered, and less of the dollar spend goes to record keeping! Now those with resources and insurance pay for those who don't have coverage anyhow! National Health Insurance won't be perfect, but it will be better than the corrupt mess we have now! Watch who fights National Health Insurance and you'll see who benefits from the confusion! Ask our President, he knows them all from his contributors list!

 

[bandaidwoman]

Good question! Everyone will be covered, and less of the dollar spend goes to record keeping! Now those with resources and insurance pay for those who don't have coverage anyhow! National Health Insurance won't be perfect, but it will be better than the corrupt mess we have now! Watch who fights National Health Insurance and you'll see who benefits from the confusion! Ask our President, he knows them all from his contributors list!

Yes, national insurance will save everyone money. Coorporations are starting to realize that providing health insurance is a big part of their overhead (even larger for small businesses), hospitals don't have to overcharge patients to make up for the uninsured who gobble up resources, more people will seek preventative care (but we need to balance that with overutilization for small stuff like we are seeing with HMOs who see doctors for viral colds that can easily be cured with time and over the counter meds etc.) Ex surgeon general Koop said that the amount we pay for paperwork to handle all the different HMOs and PPOs could provide free health care for everyone. (I believe it! Our office has six medical providers and a staff of 14 to do paperwork( coding specialist, insurance specialist, insurance manager, full time medicaid precertification specialist, a medicare collections specialist etc.!)

Contrary to urban myth, physicians are the biggest advocates
http://www.pnhp.org/ (site for physicians for national health insurance.)

 

[Billo_Really]

If other country's can do it, why can't we?

 

[Stace]

You guys have mentioned the paperwork issue, and I'd just like to throw in my two cents on it.....a big problem I see concerning that is the fact that when you move and/or change physicians, most of them will not give you a copy of your records. To me, this just doesn't make sense.....there is no way a person can remember every single injury or illness they've had throughout their life, and it does a great disservice to the new physician. If there's one thing the military taught me, it's that paper trails can be a good thing. When I started clearing, I made SURE that I requested a copy of my medical records, and then when they gave me the actual records (those go into a storage facility in St. Louis, should I ever need another copy), I went through my entire folder to make sure they didn't skip anything. Sometime in the next few weeks, I will be going through my records again and making copies of anything pertinent (many pages are for the same problem, I developed a knee injury in 2002 and had to see the docs every couple of months for it) so that I can provide my new doctors with that information.

Anyway, sorry to go off on that little rant there, but I'm pretty sure that people are supposed to be provided with copies of their records, but too often they are not. It wastes the new doctor's time, and the patient's money, when they don't have potentially relevant medical history to use to diagnose a problem.

 

[taxedout]

I just have one question for those of you who do not support National Health Insurance, because your worried that taxes will increase. What is the difference in paying higher taxes as opposed to paying an outrageous premium?

Once the government gets a hold of such a large portion of your cash,
it will never let go, it will continue to grow and increase in wastefulness and inefficiency.
The more the gov takes from you, the more it can control you, by the hoops that you will be forced to jump through, in order to get a portion of it back.
When enough of your money belongs to them, your vote is bought and paid for. Whoever has the shiniest penny to hand out, wins the election.
Too bad you will have to spend a dollar to get the penny.